Worst place to be a pilot - SBS tonight!

[Adam the Akrodude]

Monday night 26th Jan @ 2030 Local

Should be interesting!

[Tony P]

It is.

[tor lives]

Completely chaotic and disorganised at some of those Papua Highland airports.....sort of reminds of a typical day at work
TOR

[Adam the Akrodude]

Loved it! Must watch TV!

I was getting palpitations when first that 25 y.o had to use full power in his Porter getting into that tiny mountain strip when he experienced downdraft on short final. Then the crew in that Caravan experienced that sinking feeling on t/o not clearing the trees by much. Mountain flying and all that goes with it, strips with big slopes, throw in a nut bag passenger, having to load rifles and machetes in the hold - all in a days work for those Susi pilots - ARGH! This to me is a classic example of a job where what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger!

Interesting little airline.

http://fly.susiair.com/

[DesTROYer]

I think that's one of the reasons I fell in love with the Caribou.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Agreed Troy. Crewing on a Caribou in that region must have been pretty exciting at times. My old boss from many years (or should I say moons ago!) ago had a great photo of a bunch of RAAF guys standing in a line across a new runway built for the Indo's, mooning a Caribou doing a beat up at just above naught feet. It was a pretty amazing pic!

Still I think there were "runways" (and I use that term loosely!) in that program that would have challenged a Caribou. Pretty well only a Porter could tackle them I think. I can't think of any other STOL turbine powered singles that could tackle some of those mountain tracks deceptively being referred to as runways. The "pucker" factor must be pretty high at times - particularly when flying around those rock filled clouds and seeing other crashed aeroplanes.

I'll have to build a Porter one day - probably in Air America markings. I love that film "Air America" and have read both the book by this title and "Ravens". One of the most amazing approaches to a runway I've seen done was by a 19 y.o doing "meat bomb" drops in a Porter down at Barwon Heads years ago. After offloading his "payload", he'd drop a wing and put the prop in "Beta" mode and use the prop as a massive dive brake on a 45 degree down line using no flap pretty well all the way down to final. He was landing just as the "meat bombs" flared their chutes on landing - amazing stuff! We watching were all sure he'd crash, but he kept doing this all day long.

[Graeme H]

Watched them all, and what a great series, beats the crap out of shite like the Block, I'm a nobody, get me outa here, this is what reality TV should be

[Knotty]

Great series, unfortunately that was the last episode last night . It looked like the flying may have been the easy part !!!